Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Over the Rainbow

When Wizard of Oz was filmed in 1939, there was a scene just after The Witch of the West had imprisoned Dorothy in a tower and had locked the doors with a promise of a 30 minute death-sentence.  Dorothy, trying the locks comes to the realization that her dreams of adventure have a dark side, and she's in over her head: that her childhood dreams were merely whimsy and is about to cause several she just met a death sentence including herself.

Too emotionally charged, the producers removed the short scene.  Judy Garland delivers this darker reprise of Over the Rainbow, the original film footage supposedly rotting at the bottom of the Pacific.  Bootleg copies of this short reprise exist, and one was grudgingly allowed to be copied onto the 70th Anniversary edition of the BluRay re-release of the film.

Here's what Wiki has to say about it:

 In that extremely intense and fear-filled rendition, Dorothy weeps her way through it, unable to finish, concluding with a tear-filled, "I'm frightened, Auntie Em – I'm frightened!" This phrase was retained in the film and is followed immediately by Aunt Em's brief appearance in the witch's crystal, where she is soon replaced by the visage of the witch, mocking and taunting Dorothy before turning toward the camera to cackle.

Here 'tis:


Okay, if after this, you're ballin' your eyes out, here's a reprieve:

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